As the Washington Independent's David Weigel and The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder have pointed out, the potency of this issue with the hardcore conservative base is putting Republicans in a difficult position. Many of them are already giving the myth greater legitimacy. In particular, Rep. Bill Posey's birther-inspired bill requiring presidential candidates to produce their birth certificate is up to nine GOP co-sponsors in the House and is likely to attract more in the coming weeks.

Unfortunately, growing Republican and conservative support means the birth certificate myth will spread widely among the public, particularly among the conservative base, and probably supplant the related Obama Muslim myth as the #1 misperception about the president. Given howdifficult it is to correct misperceptions, this is an ominous development -- even well-intentioned debunkings like the one administered by Chris Matthews on Hardball last night are likely to fail.

Most importantly, the attention being paid to this myth -- which suggests that the President of the United States is illegitimate -- is sadly reminiscent of the way that many conservatives inside and outside of Congress lost their minds during the Clinton administration. Are we headed down that same road again? Is the birth certificate myth the equivalent of the conspiracy theory that Clinton had Vince Foster murdered? (Foster's suicide took place on July 20, 1993 -- almost the same point in Clinton's administration. Things spiraled out of control soon afterward.) It's a scary thought.

Comments

President Obama could end this controversy by simply releasing his birth certificate. I suspect he isn't doing so precisely because he is smart enough to see that this matter helps him by driving his opponents nuts.

A weak parallel would be George W. Bush purposely mispronouncing the word "nuclear" in order to drive his opponents off the wall.

Incidentally, I'm not sure what Brendan meant when he wrote, while discussing Clinton, "Things spiraled out of control soon afterward." Perhaps he's referring to the widespread myth that Clinton indulged in extra-marital oral sex in the Oval Office and then lied about it to the nation and under oath.

"Bush Derangement Syndrome"?
MartyB | July 22, 2009 at 07:25 PM
No; Republican derangement.
"Nothing uttered by Democratic leaders during the past 8 years years could have possibly been labeled worthy of":http://www.netrootsmass.net/hughs-bush-scandals-list/
More importantly, as David reminds us, Clinton lied about blow jobs.